U/E residents refuse to be counted in ongoing household registration

A large number of families in the Upper East Region are refusing to avail themselves to be enumerated, with exactly one week to end the data collection exercise in the region.

While some of the households reportedly leave their homes very early for work or farm and return very late in the evening, others also decline enumeration due to what they term as census or enumeration fatigue.

They claim several agencies, NGOs and other research institutions had on countless occasions undertook similar data collection exercises without any benefit to them or their communities.

This prompted the National Coordinator of the Ghana National Households Registry (GNHR), Dr. Prosper Laari to passionately appeal to all households in the Upper East Region that are not yet registered in the ongoing data collection exercise to do so.

The Data Collection exercise in the Upper East Region was launched at Pusiga by the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisah Djaba on February 27, 2018, after all pre-data collection activities had been completed.

According to Dr. Prosper Laari, the data collection exercise is crucial for the socio-economic advancement of Ghana, as it seeks to establish a single national household register with which social protection programmes will select their beneficiaries.

Dr. Prosper Laari

Speaking on a Bolgatanga-based radio station, Tanga Radio, as part of GNHR’s Public Information Campaign (PIC), Dr. Laari said it was important for all households in the region to be a part of the registration exercise to ensure an accurate database.

The GNHR National Coordinator expressed appreciation to the Chiefs and people and all key stakeholders of the Upper East Region for embracing the data collection exercise.

Dr. Laari explained that, the benefits of the exercise was not going to be immediate but surely will come in diverse ways.

The Communications Specialist of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Gabriella Ampem-Darko said that the GNHR had intensified its PIC across the region in a bid to encourage more households to register.

She soothed the false impression being held by some well-to-do households that the data collection was targeted only at the poor households and for that matter they will not take part.

She maintained that every household or individual was eligible to register in the exercise whether rich or poor, young or old.

She therefore called on the media in particular to support the GNHR in the public information campaign for a more successful exercise in the region.

From the Upper East Region, the GNHR data collection exercise will move to the remaining eight regions of Ghana. The exercise is being supported by the World Bank and the Government of Ghana.